


lost amongst our winnings

by rushvalleys



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Exes, F/F, Past Relationship(s), Post-Season/Series 03, Speculation, catra and adora were EXES, they DATED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 08:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20171158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rushvalleys/pseuds/rushvalleys
Summary: Adora leans her head against Catra’s, her cheek just hitting her scalp.“I loved you back then, you know,” Adora mumbles into her hair as they sway. “I missed you.”“And now?”“And now,” Adora sighs, “it’s more complicated than that.”-Catra and Adora share a dance, a dream, and a conversation.





	lost amongst our winnings

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone, catra and adora dated. they were exes. i’m being rewarded for all the lesbian drama i’ve been plagued with in my lifetime and now i have AMPLE amounts of angst fodder, i’m thriving.
> 
> the harry/hermoine dance scene from deathly hallows has been stuck in my mind, and i wanted to give catra and adora one of their own. recommended listening is “o children” by nick cave & the bad seeds.
> 
> i’ve been moving apartments so i didn’t quite get this out in time for the s3 hype but uh here this is

“Ow! Damn it, Adora!”

“Sorry!”

Catra jerks her foot up from underneath where Adora’s has stomped down, her toes crushed underneath Adora’s boot. She hops on one leg and shakes her foot in the air, half to curb the throbbing sensation and half in a show of dramatics for Adora to enjoy. 

Adora‘s grown, and has turned entirely to muscle. She is strong arms and flat, toned stomach, heavy legs that once were lanky and clumsy and couldn’t hurt Catra if they tried. The muscles of her back give way to a curve in the waist, a curve that Catra is certain wasn’t quite there before. 

Catra’s studied the changes. She’s seen them in locker rooms after training and in the barracks putting on her nightclothes, felt them in the dark crevices of the Fright Zone they steal away to when they’ve got the time to waste. She has Adora dissected and charted like she’s a battlefield. And, well—she is. 

Because any way you put it, Catra fights her, fights with and for her every day. Fighting for Adora, against Adora, with herself for burying any urge she has to challenge her, to bare her fangs against her and best  _ her _ in something for once. She swallows all that down. Adora is all she has, and most of the time, is most of what she wants. 

“Are you okay?” Adora watches her with a crease in her brow. “Did I hurt you, or are you just being annoying?”

“How dare you, Adora?” Catra laughs, putting her foot back on the ground, ignoring its throbbing as she reaches for Adora’s waist. “I’m never annoying.”

She grasps the curve of Adora’s waist with one hand, her other moving to rest on her shoulder. Adora mimics her posture, a little more stiff, a little more awkward. Catra squints as she settles into her stance.

“What?”

“Relax your shoulders a little,” Catra says. “Like you’re in a fighting stance but...not?”

“So dancing is like fighting.”

“Sure, we’ll go with that,” Catra presses her palm into the hollow of Adora’s clavicle, her fingers landing at the tip of her shoulder. “You really gotta make everything violent, don’t you?”

“Look who’s talking,” Adora quips back, and Catra digs a claw lightly into her shoulder like it’s a punishment. 

Catra’s surprised when she hears Adora hiss, the hand on Catra’s waist gripping tighter.

“I didn’t get you that hard, did I?”

Adora doesn’t answer—instead, Catra feels her body jerked downward quickly, clumsily. Adora’s arms lock around her before she can fall, one clinging to the small of her back and the other gripping her shoulder tight.

She’s aware of Adora’s chest pressed against her own, tandem in heartbeat, Adora’s legs framing both of hers. Catra presses a thigh between Adora’s to keep her balance.

They stare at one another for a moment, Catra’s tail drooped against one of Adora’s bent legs. She studies Adora’s face—studying her body as it changes is easy, but not as easy as it is to decipher her mood. It's like her eyes are ever so slightly too big for her face, too wide for her age, like they’ve never learned how to scorn or hide or lie like hers have. 

Catra guesses they haven’t learned to lie. Adora doesn’t need to lie. 

Adora’s eyes begin to close now. She leans forward slowly, slowly, then too quick, and she tumbles to the ground, Catra tumbling just in front of her.

A small wrench in her plan doesn’t stop her—Adora goes after what she’s wanted, crawling closer to Catra to frame her face in her hands and press their lips together. Catra feels her smiling as Adora laughs against her mouth, and then Catra is laughing, and then they’ve forgotten the kiss altogether as they double over.

It feels like Catra’s lungs are about to collapse on themselves, but Catra manages to say, “You’re such a moron.” 

“Hey!” Adora pushes her shoulders, and Catra catches her by the elbows as she lunges forward. “It looked fun when you did it before. I wanted to try.”

“Okay, yeah, but it wasn’t a surprise attack,” Catra snorts. “It’s not  _ actually _ fighting, Adora.”

“Where’d you even learn how to do that?”

Catra shrugs. “Remember before we started training, when we were like eight or nine, how the guys who babysat all the orphan kids would do anything to get us to wear ourselves out?”

“No,” Adora frowns. “I don’t think I really got babysat.”

“Hm.”

“I didn’t think you did, either.”

Of course she never got babysat—she’s always been Shadow Weaver’s ward first, a soldier second, a poor orphan third. Not like Catra, Shadow Weaver’s ward only in name.

Here is where Adora is a battlefield:

From here, Catra could respond two ways: one, she could scowl and lash out, she could say something passive that dips into the ever-refilling well of resentment she’s holding onto and hope Adora catches on and picks a fight that lets her unload some of it like ammunition, or she can let it go entirely. Picking a fight is...well, it wouldn’t exactly make her feel  _ better _ . But it would solve the tightening of her chest, the flicking of her ears back and forth as she simmers now in the beginning pinpricks of anger. But if she lets it go, she might be able to live in an idle fantasy with Adora for a few minutes more, one where they’re the only ones in the entire Fright Zone—the entire world, maybe.

Somehow Adora is the enemy in one of these plans, the goal in the other.

Catra decides this is a battle for another day. 

“What’s wrong?” Adora asks. “You got quiet.”

Catra waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

Catra rises to standing, pulling Adora upward by the wrists. She twines their fingers in one hand. Catra moves Adora’s hand to her shoulder and uses her own to grip Adora’s waist again.

“Anyway,” Catra continues, “they usually made us play tag or something, but sometimes they’d do this instead. Change of pace, I guess.”

“Oh,” Adora says as Catra rests her forehead against the crook of Adora’s neck. “It’s nice.”

And it  _ is _ nice. Adora feels comfortable, familiar. She’d meant what she’d sworn herself to all that time ago, that it doesn’t matter what war wages outside of the Fright Zone or, for that matter, inside of it. It just matters that she has something that feels like a home.

They sway together, not following any sort of rhythm, just sharing space with one another. Catra closes her eyes, a quiet purr rumbling through her.

“I have an extra ration bar in my locker,” Adora says eventually. “It’s the good kind. We could go up to the roof later and split it.”

“You stole a ration bar?” Catra asks incredulously. “Also, the gray kind is not the good kind.”

“I didn’t steal it, it was...it was lying around?” Adora’s always been a terrible liar, the quiver in her voice being a case in point. “Okay, fine. I took an extra from the infirmary when I skinned my knee last week. And I took a gray one, because gray  _ is  _ the good kind!”

“It’s brown, and you know it,” Catra raises an eyebrow, moving the hand at Adora’s waist to her back, pulling her in closer. “The gray is so sweet. It’s all sugar.”

“Carbohydrates,” Adora argues. 

“Carbs taste terrible. You have terrible taste.”

“Oh, come on. Do you want to split it, or no?”

“Yes,” Catra rolls her eyes. “Fine. But next time, I’m stealing us a brown one.”

“What about red?” Adora asks. “We both like red.”

“Fine,” Catra sighs as Adora flashes her a dopey, triumphant grin. “You’re lucky I like you. I don’t compromise my morals for just anyone.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Adora teases.

Catra’s ears twitch. She hears the sharp gust of wind that promises something foreboding, and she pulls her body away from Adora’s. She stands straight, tail sticking upward.

Adora narrows her eyes. “What—“

“Adora,” Shadow Weaver coos from somewhere in the dark hallway. Red eyes loom in the haze of black shadow until a body materializes. “Shouldn’t you be using this time more wisely? Your next exam is coming up, and there’s no reason you should fall behind.”

“Uh,” Adora says, “I already studied today and yesterday, I—should I be studying more?”

Shadow Weaver glares at Catra like she’s guilty, like Catra personally is going to fail Adora on her exam, as if Adora is even capable of failing an exam. Catra hates the way she cowers, the shock that passes through her spine as she meets her eyes.

“Adora,” Shadow Weaver’s eyes are back on her. “Come with me. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Adora mouths her a “sorry” as Shadow Weaver drags her by the forearm. 

She knows what they’re discussing, and even if she didn’t, she doesn’t have to try that hard to guess. Catra’s ear is sharp, and Shadow Weaver knows that. She orients herself and Adora just out of the hallway, out of the earshot of a normal human, but where Catra can hear every word, every syllable.

_ “What have I told you a thousand times before?” _

_ “But Shadow Weaver, I’ve been studying all week—“ _

_ “This isn’t about just one test. You have potential, Adora, but you aren’t special on your own. You’ll only get to do great things if you work for them, and allowing  _ her _ to waste your time as frequently as she does—“ _

_ “She wasn’t—I was just taking a break, we both studied all morning.” _

_ “I fail to see any merit in studying with someone so incompetent—“ _

Catra runs for the rooftop, knowing Adora will know where to come find her, knowing she may be upset Catra left without her, but it doesn’t matter.

Catra doesn’t consider herself to be careful, but she approaches her every interaction with Shadow Weaver with a contingency for her contingency in case the conversation goes sour, or worse, hostile. And it always does.

She hides from her, mostly. She finds something, anything else to be doing when she roams the hallways, and she separates herself from Adora no matter where they are or how innocuous their actions are. Adora doesn’t ask her why—she knows. There’s no way she doesn’t know. Adora isn’t dense enough to ignore the fact that whatever good thing Catra receives, Shadow Weaver finds a way to destroy.

They’d always been just short of inseparable from one another, but something changed once they began to grow up, and neither of them thought once to fight it. Catra embraces the change—she loves it, loves  _ her _ , but fears them both all the same. 

Intimacy in the Horde is risky—emotions and personal ties are weaknesses, after all. Ties that bind can get tangled, cut, knotted until they amount to nothing more than shreds, should the enemy have the opportunity. But Catra and Adora are already tied together, have been gambling the risk of exploitation against the one thing that brings either of them comfort since they were children. They’ve already come so far; there’s no point in stopping now.

She’s exhausted her plan of letting things go for the day, ran out of the patience required to tune out the static of the Fright Zone until only she and Adora are left. She climbs higher and higher until her legs are hanging over the dock, staring out into the horizon.

Eventually, a hand taps her shoulder. Adora sits next to her, offering her a half of her ration bar. Catra takes it wordlessly from her.

“You heard that, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t think you’re skills of deduction were that good,” Catra says under her breath.

Adora sighs. “You can be mad at me if you want.”

“For what?” Catra asks.

Adora shrugs. “I don’t know. That she talks about you like that, I guess.”

“I’m not mad at you.” Catra rests her elbows on her lap, her chin on her hands. 

“No?”

“No, I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad.”

Adora wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I get that.”

But she doesn’t. She really, really doesn’t.

* * *

The world melts around Catra, the humid heat surrounding her seeping into a dream, making the cold floor track water where her warm feet make contact. 

The pads of her feet scrape ice, the legs of her suit trap snow underneath, hitting her ankles. 

She wishes she were taller than Adora, She-Ra form notwithstanding, because they dance now and Catra isn’t the one leading. Instead, her head is idly lying against Adora’s neck, chests pressed together, one hand on her waist.

“You need me, you know.” Adora’s hand is warm in hers. 

“Shut up. No, I don’t.” 

Adora dips her—Catra realizes as her hands make contact with her back, bracing herself for impact, that the back of her dress is open, unlike the one she wore during their dance at the All Princess Ball. 

Her fingers trace scars she created.

One of her legs comes between Adora’s to steady her own body as Adora’s presses into hers, balanced on strong bent knees and holding her in place with pale, muscular arms.

She recognizes this. All of it. The Kingdom of Snows, the dance, her dance partner. It all feels so familiar, but broken and wrong now. 

When they were younger, Adora would send Catra to the ground at this point. If Catra were leading, if Catra had Adora balanced beneath her, she’d lean in and close the distance between them. Adora would press a hand to the nape of Catra’s neck as their lips slotted together. But if Adora would lead, Catra would fall.

But now, Adora holds her steady, steady like she’s never known for the two of them before.

“You sure about that?” Adora’s breath hits her cheek, her eyes locked on Catra. Catra looks into her eyes, at the slope of her neck, the hollow of her jaw where her hand and lips had once traced. 

Most of all, she stares at her lips.

“ _ Yes _ , Adora, I don’t need you.” 

The world melts again. The floor turns from ice to water, slowly, deliberately. Adora pulls away, jumps backward while she can, as Catra falls in. 

After all: if Adora leads, Catra falls.

“You don’t?”

The cold of the water pierces right through her, soaks her completely. Clothes, hair, tufts of fur. She thinks back to a second ago, remembering the feel of a warm body against a cold world and shivers despite herself. 

She gives up. 

“No,” Catra sighs. “But I wish I didn’t.”

* * *

It’s been a while since Catra has seen Adora, and nothing feels quite right.

The Horde is gaining ground, and for the first time ever, she doesn’t give a shit. She’s not on anyone’s side—not interested in the drama of the princesses or the mess that Horde Prime is making of Hordak and his underlings. She supposes that maybe she should be more invested in the end of the world, but really, who cares? If the world ends, she won’t be around to deal with the aftermath. She won’t know the difference.

But the fight encroaches on Beast Island now, and she feels an obligation to fight. She’s never felt that impulse before, never rallied behind some great cause. It’s foreign to her, having something to care about that cares for her in return. To have a pat on the back or a comforting hand on her shoulder from Micah. To have found something of an identity amongst the Magicats, surrounded by those who look and talk and think like her. To have a goal to work toward in rebuilding Halfmoon.

So when Beast Island is attacked by some evil, she rallies behind them. And where evil goes, She-Ra follows.

They’ve tiptoed around each other for the entirety of her visit, making the smallest of small talk and skirting around any points of contention between them. She-Ra is civil, courteous and kind and a disgustingly devoted martyr, after all. Even when the battle plan looks bleak, She-Ra keeps up appearances. Adora, however, unravels. 

Adora sits in one of the tents by the arena after afternoon training, hands folded in her lap and bouncing a leg up and down against the floor. A nervous tic—Catra remembers it well, remembers resting hands on her knee to stop her from shaking their table in the mess hall or the bench to the side of the training grid.

It’s been a long time since they’ve seen one another; it’s been shorter since she’s seen Adora falter and break, shorter still since she’s wished she could just put everything aside and pull Adora into her arms, like she could before the sword, when their lives were simple.

She wishes, so she tries. She taps Adora on the shoulder.

“Hey, Adora.”

She looks up. “Hm?”

Catra extends her hands toward her, and Adora narrows her eyes.

“Come on,” Catra says. “You need to calm down.”

“I’m calm—“

“Adora.”

Adora sighs. Catra knows the tells, and knows them well: the shaking of her leg, the rigid lock of her shoulders, the biting at her lip as she stares outward. 

“Come on,” Catra holds out her hands in offering. “Like old times.”

Adora rolls her eyes, but she takes Catra’s hands. Catra leads her out to the center of the tent, pushing one of Adora’s arms while pulling the other, pushing and pulling, pushing and pulling until they’ve formed a rhythm back and forth.

“Old times, huh?” Adora stares at her feet, tensing her shoulders as Catra places her arms on either side of her neck. Catra feels something in her stomach drop as Adora stiffens underneath her touch.

“Is this—“

“It’s okay,” Adora says. “I just...it’s weird to touch you again.” She sighs as Catra raises an eyebrow at her. “You know what I mean.”

Catra smirks. “Whatever you say, Adora.”

They move together in silence. Adora’s eyes move from the floor to past Catra’s shoulder as they dance, slow and lazy and familiar, and Catra wants nothing more than to cup her chin and bring Adora’s glance back toward her, to laugh and talk and kiss the corner of Adora’s mouth, her neck, her jaw like she would have in the years before.

She misses her—she hadn’t before. She hadn’t had the space in her mind to miss things and certainly no space amongst the numb static in her brain to regret anything. The days leading up to opening the portal in Hordak’s sanctum—the day that really, truly broke them both—are both a haze and viscerally clear to her all at once. She remembers the rage, the turbulence of a spiral downward, but the first memory she holds on to from that day is waking up in Adora’s room, blissful in her own willful ignorance that the world around them was crumbling. She didn’t feel any remorse then—only desperation, a last ditch effort to bring hers and Adora’s world back together, even when it was falling apart. 

But things have changed. Maybe she’s changed. She hopes she has. She matters on Beast Island, in a way she’s never mattered before. And maybe she understands a bit of Adora’s struggle, finding a birthright she never wanted or expected. Maybe it doesn’t matter if she understands or not, but she realizes she’s become something beyond repair, and now she needs to become something else. Maybe she’s tired of it all and just wants to rest down her burden somewhere she can forget it forever. 

Catra weaves her fingers together behind her neck, and Adora offers her a small hint of a smile as her hands find Catra’s hip. They move together, a steady, slow rhythm in the rocking of their feet. 

“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” Adora says. 

“Beast Island?” Catra asks. “Yeah, well. Beast Island’s where you go when you fuck up. You know that.”

Adora looks down, staring at her feet. “Of course you go to literal hell on earth and come out on the top of the food chain.”

Catra snorts. “Please. The guys in the Crimson Waste were soft touches compared to here.”

Adora nods. She opens her mouth again, then closes it quickly with a shake of her head. 

“What?”

“Nothing, just,” Adora says, “you never needed me, you know. You did all this on your own. The Crimson Waste, Halfmoon—“

“—the stuff with Horde,” Catra continues with a sigh. “What, are you gonna say you’re proud of me? Is that what you think I’m waiting for?”

Adora looks at her again, a deep crease set in between her brows. Catra can’t decipher what’s in her eyes—anger, mixed with remorse, mixed with something else. Longing, maybe—but that’s wishful thinking on Catra’s part

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Sure.”

“The portal?”

“The portal,” Catra echoes.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t figure it out?” Adora asks. “That it wasn’t real. You think I’m dumb enough to not notice something was wrong?”

“I—“ Catra frowns, pursing her lips. “I was hoping you didn’t care.”

Catra leaves her to consider that, moving to grasp one of Adora’s hands in hers and settle the other on her waist. Adora does the same.

“When I started getting memories back, I figured you would, too,” Catra squeezes Adora’s hand. “But, I don’t know. I thought I opened the portal, and the universe finally rewarded me for something. Gave me another chance to do things right.”

“No, that’s not it,” Adora clicks her tongue. “You put the blame on me. You thought it gave  _ me _ another chance.”

“Oh, come on—“

“You wanted me to stay,” Adora says curtly. “I was never going to.”

“In my defense, you also wanted something from me.”

“Catra, you don’t really get a ‘defense’ here.” Adora shrugs as she relaxes into Catra’s touch, slowly, carefully. “I mean, you almost destroyed the world. You could’ve realized that was a mistake. You could’ve helped me fix it, you could have given it all up and been with me like I thought you wanted, but you cared more about being right than about me.”

Catra flicks her tail, dragging it from side to side behind her. “I could have.”

“But you didn’t,” Adora says. “To spite me.”

“I was angry. I never said I was right.”

“You really thought things would’ve been perfect if I had just stayed, huh?” There’s something small in her voice, something delicate in her tone. It’s not an accusation, like it very well should be. It’s a question, a genuine question, asked as if in some small part she wants it to be true. 

“I don’t know what I thought,” Catra says. “I wasn’t—“ 

_ ‘I wasn’t myself,’ _ is what Catra thinks to say, but doesn’t. Because, in truth, she was herself. And wasn’t that the problem? That she was cruel, vindictive, fueled by something awful and all-consuming?

“I wasn’t thinking,” Catra says instead.

“I just can’t figure out if you wanted to blame me or get me back.” Adora says. “I don’t know what you expected to happen. I used to be able to read you.”

Adora leans her head against Catra’s, her cheek just hitting her scalp. 

“I loved you back then, you know,” Adora mumbles into her hair as they sway. “I missed you.”

“And now?”

“And now,” Adora sighs, “it’s more complicated than that.”

“Things can’t ever be simple with you, can they?” Catra says with a dry laugh. “It’s always ‘do this or the world’s gonna end’ or ‘we’ve got to run before the crazy portal eats us,’ isn’t it?”

Adora crinkles her nose. “I don’t think I’m ready to joke about that yet.”

“Sorry,” Catra says. “I didn’t mean—“

“No, I know.” Adora raises her hand, taking her and Catra’s arms along with it. She raises an eyebrow at Catra, and Catra takes the invitation to twirl under her hand, fixing her grip on Adora as she turns to face her once again.

“I know things are complicated,” Catra says, leaning her head against Adora’s neck. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Really.”

“Yeah,” Adora nods. “Yeah, I know. I just need more time.”

“Yeah.”

Adora chuckles, light and quick. “Thanks for the party, by the way.”

“What, in the portal?”

“The ration bars? That was a nice touch,” Adora says. “You don’t even like the gray kind.”

“Yeah, well—“

“Yeah, I know, ‘it’s not because you like me.’”

Catra rolls her eyes. “No, Adora.”

“Then what?”

Catra stops them both, untucking her head from beneath Adora’s chin to look her in the eye. There’s that look again, the look clouding Adora’s eyes that Catra can’t make sense of. Whatever it is, it makes pinpricks on Catra’s skin.

“I loved you, too,” Catra runs her thumb across Adora’s knuckles. “Like, really loved you. But it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“Maybe someday,” Adora says in turn. She looks out behind Catra, frowning. Catra looks back—the moon is setting, bruising the sky with purpling black.

Adora steps back, her hand still in Catra’s. “I should get back. I’ve got meetings in the morning.”

“Sure,” Catra says.

She watches Adora consider her, weigh her options like she’s going to war right then and there. Catra understands—how do you say goodbye to someone you’ve loved but don’t  _ love _ , someone you’re not fighting against, but not fighting for? Once there would be a kiss goodnight. Now there’s nothing more than Adora’s tentative smile as she unlaces her fingers from Catra’s.

Adora says on the way out, “we’ll talk later, okay?”

Catra watches her leave, her hands still warm, the ghost of Adora’s skin and hands hot against her.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> as always, find me @rushvalleys on twitter and tumblr


End file.
